


When

by somihomie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, Barista AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:19:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7616062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somihomie/pseuds/somihomie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One shot of bickering, friendship, tension, mullet jokes, and the lament of missing family. Barista AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When

Keith wasn’t particularly fond of his job, but it was part of what paid his rent, so he couldn’t complain much. But complaining was an art, he knew how to whine in a way that didn’t sound too childish, but just enough so to seem almost angst in an alluring yet mysterious way. Or, so he’s been told by some of his customers.

And speaking of customers.

“Why are you always here?” Keith asked, annoyed at the sight of one of his regulars that he would rather _not_ see on a daily basis.

“Because I get off on seeing you serve me,” Lance said almost automatically, his gaze trained on his laptop screen, most probably completing an assignment for one of his classes. He would rather not, of course, but his mind chanted the mantra that after he was done with the core classes, he would be one step closer to fulfilling his dream job. Baby steps. “Just get me the usual.”

“What makes you think I would know what your usual is?” Keith spat back, pulling a rag out of his back pocket to furiously clean the table top next to Lance’s seat.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t, since you’re dumb enough to drop out of school to remember simple things anyways. It makes sense, actually.”

“Why you—” Keith almost shouted, but stopped when he saw Lance pull away from his screen to wag a scolding finger at him.

“Tsk, tsk, Keith. Isn’t the customer always right?” Lance asked, a knowing smirk over his face, which boiled the barista’s blood even more.

“Not when it’s a dumbass like you,” he retorted, storming behind the counter to begin preparing his coffee, muttering all the while to himself all sorts of colorful vocabulary directed at a certain someone. But he tried to take a calming breath, knowing he couldn’t act this way, even if it was Lance of all people. He reminded himself that he stuck around for Shiro, in hopes that the owner would one day show his face around here once again, and all Keith’s struggles would be validated.

“Maybe you should start wearing a hairnet. I wouldn’t want to find one of your _long_ strands of hair in my order,” Lance threw over his shoulder, attention back on his assignment, looking over source material for guidance. Any shot he could get about making fun of Keith’s mullet was an opportunity he would seize readily.

“I’m starting to think you come here so often because you’re obsessed with me,” Keith retorted, adding the necessary amount of sugar and milk into the cup.

“Then you think too much of yourself. Maybe if you were a tall, dark, and gorgeous babe like— let’s say, Allura, than I’d probably agree with you.” Arguably, Keith had the first two of those requirements down.

“Allura? The senior whose family is rich? Rich enough to practically be considered royalty?” Keith asked, placing the mug down beside Lance’s laptop.

“Yep,” he popped the word, smiling to himself at the thought of his princess. Keith almost snorted at the notion.

“She’s way out of your league.”

“Maybe so, but she’ll come around! They always do,” Lance said with the utmost confidence, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head, his smirk telling silent tales of all of his already failed attempts, but also the attempts that were soon to come in the near future. “Now, what’s another word for ‘pilot’? I need to sound fancy to impress this hard ass professor into getting me to pass his class. I can’t just say captain, or ace, or the most handsome slash best—”

“Doyen,” Pidge interrupted before Lance could go on, dropping his bag next to an empty chair, while Hunk dragged a vacant chair to join their table. “You flaked on us.”

“I didn’t flake!” Lance protested, his face betraying him as he looked upon the two nervously. “I just— didn’t remember that we were supposed to work on the project today. I’m swamped as it is.”

“Don’t be too hard on Lance, Pidge. After all, he’d rather hang out with Keith than his two best friends,” Hunk said in a playfully melodramatic manner, only teasing the other. If the project were in a more dire state, he’d be nervously rambling on about it by now. However, they still had two weeks before it was due, so he was in a more mellow mood. That is, until Lance procrastinated the project long enough to get him into his renown anxious state.

“Would not!”

“Then stop coming here,” Keith interjected with a quirked brow.

“You’ll miss me too much if I’m gone.”

“ _When_ you’re gone, and fat chance of that happening.” Pidge slammed a textbook on the table, silencing their bickering, staring pointedly at Lance.

“Really? We’re going to do this right now?” Lance asked, letting out a whine as he started at his other homework, which wasn’t even half done.

“Really.”

“C’mon, it won’t take that long with the three of our heads put together,” Hunk tried to reassure.

“You forgot to factor in Keith being here, which adds another—“ Pidge counted over his fingers, not because he needed to, but to add onto the suspense. “—a little over an hour, perhaps.”

“Not to mention all the distractions around here,” Hunk added on, all three of them turning to Lance at that very moment, who was winking at a table of girls a couple of tables away. Feeling the burns of their stares, he turned back to them, confused.

“What?” Lance asked, and they just sighed as Pidge booted up his own laptop for the work ahead. “C’mon, lighten up! We’ve got this in the bag! We can totally do all this, while also having fun. Isn’t that what college is all about?”

“Hey, isn’t that Allura out there window shoppi—” Hunk didn’t even finish, before Lance shot up from his seat, and ran for the door.

“Where? Allura! Babe! What a coincidence bumping into you here!” Lance shouted out, out the door, his head shooting left and right to find her, his feet carrying him too fast for his mind to catch up.

“She isn’t really out there, is she?” Pidge asked matter-of-factly, staring out the glass window at the fumbling Lance.

“Nah,” Hunk replied smiling at his friend running into the road. He was somewhat worried, since Lance didn’t look both ways before crossing the street, but the guy had dumb luck on his side to save him from a pitch.

“Wonder how long it’ll take for him to realize it.”

“That’s the point.” Pidge and Hunk shared a glance, smiling as they wordlessly fistbumped, and went on to start their work as they waited for their third party to once again join them.

“At least he’s out of here,” Keith said to himself under his breath, once again taking his place behind the counter to arrange some things. Out of habit, he turned to the photos hung on the wall behind him, and zeroed in on one in particular of him, younger and naively happy, standing beside the owner of the shop. Shiro looked politely happy as well, with his arm wrapped around Keith, but his eyes shone with pride. Pride, for Keith, maybe? He’d like to think so. He’d like to muse to himself that, if Shiro were here, he’d be smiling and laughing, clasping him on the back, encouraging him on even if he didn’t need it.

He’d like to think that Shiro was ok, still alive somewhere. He hadn’t heard back from him in over a year, no matter how much he tried sending out letters, calling the air force headquarters, badgering them to give him any hope or report from the missing men from the Kerberos mission. He knew he wasn’t the only one suffering, that Pidge was doing all that and more in order to find his father and brother whom also went missing on that same mission, but it was hard to think of anything beyond his own dismay when he was drowning in his helplessness.

“You tricked me! She wasn’t out there!” Lance shouted as he stormed back into the café, sulking, and Keith wiped a stray tear from his eyes before any of them could see him in such a state.

“Only an idiot would have fallen for that,” Keith shot back from the loud protest, voice hoarse, but tried to cover it up with his usual baritone.

“Then you should have ran out with me.”

“If you guys are _quite_ finished with your lovers quarrel, we’ve all got some _actual_ work to do,” Pidge said sarcastically, in hopes of calming down the bickering. They both cringed at the term, quickly looking away from each other to fumble to do their own thing, wanting to dispel the notion of anything that was between them as anything _affectionate_.

The three worked on their project, and Keith turned his attention to cleaning and attending customers, wanting to keep the store in tiptop shape for whenever Shiro returned. Not _if_ he returned, Keith would never let himself believe that Shiro would abandon him. _When._


End file.
